Currently: London

gondola

Venice was just a short stay for us, and we chose Venice because for the next part of our trip we were meeting up with my cousin Gemma and her boyfriend Matia in Trieste, which was about a 2 hour train ride from Venice. Isaac and I came up from Sorrento on the Friday, arriving at night, and we left first thing on Sunday morning. We took a ferry from Sorrento to Naples, and from Naples the train to Venice. It was a bit more expensive to book the direct change but we thought we would prefer this rather then change in Rome, however it wouldn’t have been a big deal if we did. So we sat, watched some tv shows and read our books for the 6 hour journey.

I had booked in to stay at Sarah Sun Island. It was 2 power boats docked together that stay at Sacca Fisola set up like a hotel. Its more of a residential island then other parts of Venice, and it was nice and quiet. It was incredibly easy and quick to get around and to get to more central parts of Venice, so all up this made for a great cheap way to be staying here.

The first night we stayed we had a little wander around and found somewhere for dinner. We were a bit shocked at the prices, which were extremely inflated compared to Sorrento, when we had had some better meals for better prices.

On the Saturday the heat was nearly unbearable, we were shocked that the entire city was so unprepared for the heat. We had planned to do a gondola ride, but we thought that to sit for over an hour in the blasting sun would not be the most pleasant way to spend the afternoon, so we will have to come back one day and do a gondola ride (what a shame).

Here are some tips I got from Matia, who went to uni in venice: eat ‘ciccjetti’ from of the best ‘bacareto in town, Bacareto Da lele, or al Bottegon. Go to the island of Giudecca to walk around and get more of a local feeling. Walk along the ‘fondamenta della zattere’ and you will end up in front of san Marco.

We tried to do as much of this as we could throughout the day, and in the morning we went to the Peggy Guggenheim collection, which was her former home. This took up the whole morning as it was quite extensive, but I definitely wouldn’t miss it if that’s where your interests lie. It was a fantastic gallery.

That night we crossed over to Giudecca to get something for dinner, but we found that this island in particular had a few expensive restaurants. We also struggled for a decent vegetarian option as well. We had a lovely view though, and half way through the dinner we got rained out and had to run inside, with flashes of lightning getting closer and closer. We waited out the rain before calling it a night.

Early on the Sunday we made our way to the station to go to Trieste. From here we were getting picked up by Gem and Matia and were driving down to Mali Losinj in Croatia, for the next part of our holiday.